Modern art purports the idea that there is no general agreement about what
is true, certain, or important in life. Many Italian novelists,
dramatists and cinematographers of this century have addressed/challenged
this modern uncertainty by overtly foregrounding as the theme of their
works an imaginative exile into alternative worlds and fictional
constructs. What are the pragmatic implications of these self-conscious
strategies? What do they tell us about fiction and life and about the
role of art within the context of the Modern and Postmodern? Moreover,
what do they tell us about the ways we interact with each other and about
the nature of our interactions with other phenomena in the world of actual
experience? What do they disclose about ourselves as co-creators of our
world? Are they underscoring aesthetic creation as a legitimate world in
itself which offers the stability and the certainty we are in search of?
Can it be assumed that a self-conscious exile into fictional constructs is
an artist's way of underscoring how we all aspire to the aesthetic
alternatives created by our imagination?

Papers should be in English or Italian and roughly 20 minutes in length.
Please submit abstracts of approximately 250 words by June 15, 1998.
Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the conference comparative
approaches are encouraged provided that Italian works are included.

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